The Dinner Lady Who Was THOTH

Part One. Still There

The strange things from Friday were still there on Monday.

The menu board in the dinner hall was still written in beautiful, curly, bird-like handwriting, with tiny pictures. Every name on the register was still in perfect black ink. Mr Harris had tried to rub one of them out with a wet cloth. The cloth came away clean, and the name did not move at all.

And across the door of the dinner hall, the long, thin, curved shadow lay exactly where it had lain on Friday. It did not move when the sun moved. It was there at nine o'clock and at ten o'clock, and Kenji said it was pointing.

"Pointing at what?" said Ollie.

"At lunch," said Kenji. "Probably."

Alex noticed that the voice in the kitchen had not stopped, either. It was still reading its long list, slowly, one word at a time. He stood by the hatch with his ear against the wood, and he heard it say, "Alex Bailey. Felix Bailey. Maya Singh."

"It's reading the register," whispered Alex. "In order. It's got to the Bs."

"How many names are there?" asked Felix.

"A lot," said Alex. "It's going to take all week."

Mr Harris came past with his clipboard. He had a new worry line on his forehead, right between the old ones. "Good news," he said. "We have a new dinner lady. Starting today. I don't remember hiring her, but my clipboard says I did, and it is written in lovely handwriting. Everything is perfectly... mostly... under control."

Felix noticed that he had said "mostly." That was new.

Part Two. Fourteen Peas

The new dinner lady was standing on a stool behind the hatch, and she was correcting the spelling.

She was a small, neat lady with a long, thin, curved nose and a white apron with a pocket full of pens. Her badge said MRS IBBS, DINNER LADY. She was holding a pointy pen made of a reed, and a little pot of black ink, and she was crossing out words on the notice that Mrs Dunn had stuck to the hatch.

Where it said SPAGETTI, she wrote SPAGHETTI. Where it said SOSSAGES, she wrote SAUSAGES. Then she stepped back, and her head went forwards and backwards, like a pigeon's, and she said, "Much better."

"Er," said Mr Harris. "That's Mrs Dunn's notice."

"It was," said Mrs Ibbs. "Now it is correct."

Mrs Dunn was standing next to her with a ladle. Mrs Dunn has been a dinner lady at our school since before the school had a gate, and she has a laugh like somebody dropping a tray. She looked at the notice for a long time. Then she laughed. "Twenty years I've been spelling it like that," she said. "Never once did anyone tell me. Good for you, dear. Do you know where the big spoon lives?"

"Yes," said Mrs Ibbs. "You were about to tell me, and I am glad you didn't, because it is more polite to be shown."

She did the gravy standing on one leg, with the other foot tucked up. She did the peas on one leg. She did not wobble at all.

At the hatch, when Kenji held out his plate, she looked at it with one eye and then the other eye, and said, "Fourteen peas. Last week you had sixteen. Are you well?"

"How do you KNOW that?" said Kenji.

"I count things," said Mrs Ibbs. "It is a hobby. I would like to have it written that I have no other hobbies."

Ollie tried to hide two sprouts under his fork. Mrs Ibbs did not even look down. "Eleven," she said. "I gave you thirteen. They are under the fork. Thank you for being so tidy about it."

Part Three. No Running

The door of the dinner hall had a new sign, and it was the best sign in the school.

It said NO RUNNING, in black ink, in curly bird-like letters with a little curl on the tail of the G. It had been written that morning, and nobody could say who by. Maya looked at it for a long time, with her head on one side.

"It's very beautiful," she said. "It's very beautiful, and I think it's very strong."

"It's a sign," said Ollie. "Signs don't do anything."

He took a step back. He took a very big breath. It was ten minutes before lunch, and Ollie is the fastest runner in our class when there is a pudding at the end of it. He ran at the door as hard as he could go.

And his feet slowed down.

They did not stop. They just went walk, walk, walk, like feet that had been told something. Ollie went through the door at the pace of a very polite duck, with his mouth open. Behind him, Mrs Ibbs was looking at the sign with her head on one side.

"Quite so," she said. "What is written properly, stays written. That is the whole point of writing."

Alex noticed that she had not said it to Ollie. She had said it to the air, like a person making a note.

Felix asked, "Mrs Ibbs, does it work on everything you write?"

"On the Record, yes," said Mrs Ibbs. "I keep one. I am a keeper of records. I ink the week's page every Tuesday night, from the chart in the hall, and once a month, at the full moon, the pages are sealed. After that, what is written is how things are. So I must copy exactly. Spelling is mine to mend. Facts are not. A record that changes its mind is no record at all."

"When is the next full moon?" said Alex.

"Wednesday night," said Mrs Ibbs. "At moonrise."

Willow came in then. She is the Bengal Reading Cat, and she is very dignified. She walked straight up to Mrs Ibbs's one leg and sat down beside it, and Mrs Ibbs looked down and bowed, a small, proper bow, from the middle.

"Ah," she said. "A cat. We have always respected cats."

Willow shut her eyes, slowly. We took that as evidence.

Part Four. The Chart

On Tuesday morning, Mr Harris drew the chart.

It was a big sheet of paper on the wall in the dinner hall, and it was for the week. He drew it with a ruler and a thick black pen, because Mrs Ibbs had asked him for it in a very polite note, and he stood on a chair to do it. Mrs Tibbs had a smaller version on our classroom wall. It had a picture of a cake on Thursday.

"Whose cake?" said Ollie. He was staring at it like it owed him money.

"Kenji's," said Mrs Tibbs. "It is his birthday on Thursday. Please don't eat the drawing."

Kenji went pink, and then he went even pinker, and he said he did not mind about the birthday. He minded a bit.

Back in the dinner hall, Mr Harris was drawing his columns. He drew a column, and a column, and a column, and the phone in his pocket rang. It was the Council, and they wanted the playground drain form, and Mr Harris said, "Yes, yes, I have it here," with the phone under his chin and the ruler in his hand. He drew one more column, rather quickly, and wrote the days at the top, still talking. Then he rubbed his forehead and went away.

Alex noticed the chart. He did not know why. It just looked like a chart. There was a lot of black on it.

At lunchtime, Mrs Ibbs read it over, with her one-legged stoop, and copied it into a very large, very old, very beautiful book with a leather cover and a silver clasp. She wrote fast, and her pen went scritch, scritch, scritch, and she did not look up, not even when Ollie asked if he could have the crispy bit.

"I copy exactly," she said. "I have said so."

So she did. And nobody looked at the chart again. That was the trouble.

Part Five. Behind the Compost Bin

At break, Maya called a meeting behind the compost bin.

Alex held the pencil. Felix held Maya's notebook, because the twins always share the jobs, and then they swap. Kenji and Ollie sat on their upside-down buckets. Willow sat on the lid of the bin, and she did not look at the smell.

"Evidence number one," said Maya. "The beak. Mrs Ibbs has a very long, thin, curved nose, and it is a bit like a banana, but it is NOT a banana."

"Two," said Felix. "She stands on one leg."

"Three," said Kenji. "She counts everything."

"Four," said Ollie. "She wrote a sign that makes your feet walk. That is not normal. I'm not saying it's wrong. I'm saying I did not get my pudding first."

"Five," said Alex, writing. "The writing. The menu, the register, the door. It was all done in one night, in the same handwriting, and it was all so good that the cloth couldn't rub it out."

"And six," said Maya. She turned back some pages. "Mr Jackson's phone call. Do you remember? In the library, with his back turned. He said, 'Yes, Thoth. Could you write it down?' Somebody called Thoth writes things down. And the new lady has a pen made of a reed, a great big book, and a hobby of counting."

"So," said Alex.

"So," said Maya, and she shut her notebook, "I think Mrs Ibbs is THOTH."

"Is that a sneeze?" said Ollie.

"It is not," said Maya. "It is a god."

Part Six. The Moon and the Dice

Maya said that Thoth is very, very old. She said he is one of the gods of ancient Egypt, and that is a religion from thousands of years ago, which some people still honour today, so she was going to say it carefully and kindly.

She said his name is said a bit like "Toth", though nobody is quite sure, so we should not worry. She said he has the head of a bird called an ibis, which has a long curved beak and long thin legs, and which stands in the mud by the river Nile, poking about for lunch.

"Mrs Ibbs," said Kenji. "Ibis. Ibbs."

"Yes, Kenji. Well done."

Maya said that Thoth was the god of writing, and of wisdom, and of the moon, and of keeping count. He kept the record for all the gods, and he wrote with a reed pen. She said that the Egyptians believed he made up the very first writing, tiny pictures called hieroglyphs, so that people could remember things, and that nobody would have to argue about who said what.

Then she told us the story of the moon and the dice.

A very long time ago, she said, the Egyptians counted three hundred and sixty days in a year. That is twelve months of thirty days each. And the sky goddess, Nut, was going to have babies. But the most powerful god in the sky had told her she could not have them on any day of the year. And every day was in the year.

"That's not fair," said Ollie.

"No," said Maya. "That's what Thoth thought."

So Thoth went up to the moon, which was shining softly in the night sky, and he said, "Shall we play a game of dice?" And the moon said, "What do I get?" And Thoth said, "Whoever wins gets a little of the other's light. Not much. A little."

They played. And Thoth won, and he won again, and every time he won, the moon gave up a tiny bit of its light, like a silvery feather. And the little bits of light added up, and added up, until there was enough to make five whole new days. They came after the three hundred and sixty. They did not belong to any month. And on those five days Nut had five children, one on each day, and nobody could say it was against the rule.

"So that's three hundred and sixty-five," said Felix.

"Exactly," said Maya. "That is how we have the days we have." She said that the Egyptians did not say it quite this way, and that this was only how we like to tell it. But she wrote one line in her notebook and underlined it once. The moon gave up a little. A little was enough.

Willow, on the bin, looked at the sky for a long time, although it was a cloudy morning, and there was no moon at all.

Part Seven. A Name in Pictures

On Tuesday afternoon, we decided to test her.

Maya said that you cannot ask a god if she is a god, because gods like to keep it quiet. But you can ask her to write something for you.

So Alex asked. He stood at the hatch with his hands behind his back and said, in his clearest voice, "Mrs Ibbs, would you write my name?"

"With pleasure," said Mrs Ibbs.

She took out a scrap of paper and her reed pen, and she wrote five little pictures, in a row. A bird. A lion. A reed leaf. A basket. A bit of folded cloth.

"That is your name in hieroglyphs," she said. "Or as near as I can get. They did not have a letter exactly like yours. It says A, L, E, and a sound like K and S."

Alex looked at it. It did not look like Alex at all, and it looked better than anything he had ever seen.

"Mine, please," said Felix, and she wrote him a little snake that stood up straight, a lion, and two reeds. "And I shall write that this is not a very good snake," she said, "and I am sorry for it. Snakes are difficult."

Felix said it was the best snake in the world.

She wrote Willow's name as a reed leaf and a cat, and Willow looked at it, and sat on it.

Mrs Dunn came up behind us, drying her hands, and she leaned over the hatch. "Mrs Ibbs," she said, "will you do mine?"

"Of course," said Mrs Ibbs, and she wrote it with the greatest care, and she did not correct a single thing about it.

Then Mrs Ibbs looked at the four of us standing in a row, and she said, very quietly, "You are working something out. I would like to say that I admire it. And I shall write that I did not say anything about it."

"You're Thoth," said Maya.

"I shall write," said Mrs Ibbs, "that I never said so."

She smiled with the whole of her long thin face. It was a very kind smile.

Part Eight. Where Is Thursday?

On Wednesday, at lunch, Ollie noticed it first.

He was standing at the hatch, with his tray, reading the beautiful menu board (Mrs Ibbs had written it out again on Tuesday night, from the chart), because Ollie reads the menu the way other people read a story. He read it once. He read it again, with his finger.

"Monday, fish pie," he said. "Tuesday, sausages. Wednesday, pasta. Friday, pizza." He stopped. His face did something strange. "Where's Thursday?"

"What?" said Alex.

"There isn't one," said Ollie. "It goes Wednesday, then Friday. It's not a mistake. It's all very beautiful, and it's all very tidy, and it's not a mistake."

Alex looked at the board. He counted on his fingers, with the pencil in the other hand. Monday. Tuesday. Wednesday. Friday.

"It's four," he said.

"It should be five," said Felix.

They went to the big chart on the wall. Marion was there, from the class above. She was doing Reading Buddy jobs, and she was holding a pile of reading books against her chest, and she had nearly finished counting them. "Don't talk to me," she said. "I am on fourteen."

"Marion," said Alex. "Could you count the days on that chart? Just count them."

Marion put the books down. She put her finger on the first column. "Monday," she said. "Tuesday. Wednesday. Friday." She stopped. She counted it again. "It's four. Why is it four?"

"Mr Harris did it," said Felix. "On Tuesday. With the phone."

Then we all looked at the kitchen. And that's when the voice that had been reading the register stopped, in the middle of a name.

Part Nine. The Book Does Not Change Its Mind

Mrs Ibbs went the colour of porridge.

She stood on both feet, which is not what she did when she was calm, and she looked at the chart. She looked at her big old book. She turned it to the page, and it was beautifully written, in the finest black ink, and it said, in her own hand: Monday. Tuesday. Wednesday. Friday.

"I copied it," she said. "I copied exactly. I did not read it. I was so careful to copy that I did not read it." Her voice wobbled. "That is the oldest mistake a scribe can make."

Mr Harris came. Mrs Tibbs came, with Kenji by the hand, and Kenji's face was trying very hard to look as if he did not mind. Mrs Dunn came and stood close behind Mrs Ibbs, not saying anything.

"Mr Harris," said Mrs Ibbs. "I am very sorry. I should have asked."

"No," said Mr Harris. He looked at the chart. He went red from the collar up. "No, no. It was me. I drew four columns. I was talking to the Council. I'm so sorry, Kenji. I'm so sorry, everyone. I always say it is perfectly under control, and it is not. It is not."

Nobody said anything for a moment.

"I accept it," said Mrs Ibbs, gently. "And I give you mine."

"Then we cross it out," said Mr Harris, "and write Thursday in."

"I cannot," said Mrs Ibbs. "I told you. A record that changes its mind is no record. At moonrise tonight, the pages are sealed. Everything in the book will be how things are. And in the book, after Wednesday, comes Friday."

"What happens to Thursday?" said Kenji. He said it in a tiny voice.

"It does not happen," said Mrs Ibbs. "We go to bed on Wednesday, and we wake up on Friday. And there is no cake, and no story, and no birthday, and no Thursday for anyone, ever." She looked at Kenji, and her long thin face was sad. "I would give anything."

Part Ten. Writing It In

Alex put up his hand. He did not know what he was going to say. He only knew that someone had to try something.

"Could we write it in?" he said. "Just a little bit? In the gap? Thursday, I mean. Under Wednesday. Before Friday."

"It will not hold," said Mrs Ibbs. "But you are welcome to try."

He held the reed pen. It was much bigger than his pencil. He wrote THURSDAY in the gap, very carefully, in his best letters, with his tongue out. For a moment it looked quite good. Then the ink went pale, and shivered, and slid off the page like rain off a window.

"It's gone," said Alex. His ears went hot.

"Let me," said Felix. He had a different idea. He took a pencil, to be sure, and he wrote very small, so small it nearly was not there. The pencil marks went thin and curled up, like a spider, and fell off the edge.

"Rubber," said Ollie, helpfully. "Or a bit of that white stuff."

"No!" said Mrs Ibbs.

But Ollie had a rubber, and he rubbed at Wednesday, just a tiny bit, and the whole page went hmmmmm. The ink got darker. A tiny, cold wind came out of the book and blew Mr Harris's clipboard right out of his hands.

Ollie put the rubber down. "Sorry," he said. "That's not it either."

"No," said Mrs Ibbs, and she was breathing quickly. "You cannot write a day in, my dears. A day that has not been won will not stay written. A day has to be won."

"Won," said Felix. "From who?"

Mrs Ibbs looked up at the high window of the dinner hall. It was still bright afternoon. "From the moon," she said.

Part Eleven. Not on Speaking Terms

"But you did it before," said Maya. "You won the days. Thoth did, I mean. In the story."

"I did," said Mrs Ibbs. She sat down on the stool, with her hands in her lap. She looked, for a moment, like someone who had been caught eating a biscuit. "And the moon has not quite forgiven me. It likes me very well. It simply does not like to be beaten. We have not been on speaking terms for five thousand years."

"Then I'll ask," said Felix.

Everybody looked at him.

"I'll ask it," said Felix. "I am the one who asks. And Alex is the one who notices. We'll do it together. If somebody has to play it, it should be somebody it has never lost to."

Alex put his hand in Felix's. He did not say anything. Willow got down off the counter and sat by their feet.

"The moon," said Mrs Ibbs slowly, "plays two rules. You must ask before you throw. And you must count true. If you cheat, it takes its light and goes. If you ask nicely, it may stay for a little while."

"We'll ask," said Alex.

"And we'll count," said Felix.

"And you will need five wins," said Mrs Ibbs. "Five little bits of moonlight make a day. That is how it was before."

So Mr Harris telephoned our grown-ups, one by one. Mrs Tibbs and Mrs Dunn made cocoa. Elfine came, and sat on a little chair at the back, and told Ollie that an ibis has a beak that curves like a thin new moon. Ollie did not hear a word, because his tummy was making a noise.

Mr Thorley came in at dusk with a long pole, and opened the highest window in the dinner hall, very slowly and very quietly, with one finger on his beard. "Don't startle me," he whispered. We all whispered back that we would not.

Then we sat in the dinner hall, with the lights off, and waited for moonrise.

Part Twelve. The Moon Comes In

It came up over the field just as the sky went dark, a little after half past four, and it was enormous.

It was round and white and very close, and a long silver square of light slid in through the highest window and lay across the table where the book was. Mrs Ibbs set her dice down in the middle of the light. They were two small dice made of bone, and they shone.

"Now," she whispered.

Felix stood in the light. His knees were wobbling. He looked out of the window, up at the great white face, and he said, in a voice that was very small and very clear, "Please. We would like to play."

For a moment nothing happened.

Then the light brightened, just a little, the way a person's face brightens when you ask the right thing. And there was a very soft sound, like a sheet of paper being turned over. A third die, as pale as milk, rolled out of the moonlight all by itself, and stopped. It showed a six.

"It's the moon's," whispered Maya.

"We go first," said Alex. "Or we go second. I think we go second."

The moon's die lay shining on the table. Five wins, thought Alex. He thought of Kenji. And that's when he picked up his die and threw it as hard as he could.

Part Thirteen. Two Throws, No Luck

It was a terrible throw.

It skidded off the table, bounced off the leg of a chair, hit the wall, and rolled away under the serving hatch, where there was a dark gap, with cobwebs in it. The moon's die stayed shining on the table. It said six. Alex's die said nothing, because it was in the dark.

"That's one lost," said Marion, who was keeping count. "Don't write that down, Alex."

"I have to," said Alex. He took the pencil and put one little mark in the corner of the Record. "We count true," he said. "That's the rule."

The moon's light seemed to lean a little closer to the table, as if it were watching. It liked that.

Felix grabbed the other die. He was in a hurry, and he threw it before he had said anything at all. The light flickered, like a face going cross. The die stopped on the cloth, a long way outside the silver, and showed a one.

"That doesn't count," said Marion. "That's two lost." Felix went pink, and made his own little mark, because it was only fair.

"Where did it go?" said Kenji.

Mr Harris got down on his knees by the hatch and shone a torch into the gap. It was a narrow black space under the serving counter, where the old plate-lift used to be, and it smelled of ancient gravy. A very large cobweb hung from the roof of it.

"I can't reach," said Mr Harris. "My arm is too short, and my shoulders are too wide."

The silver square on the table had moved. It had slid an inch towards the edge. The moon was climbing.

"We haven't got long," said Mrs Ibbs.

Willow walked across the floor. She does not like cobwebs. She does not like dark gaps, or ancient gravy. She stood at the edge of the hatch for a moment, with her tail straight up. And then she went in, slowly, like a very dignified shadow.

We heard nothing at all.

We counted to ten. We counted to twenty. Ollie said, "She's been eaten by the dark," and Marion said, "Don't."

Then a small striped head came out of the gap. There was a cobweb on one ear, and the little white die was in her mouth, clean and shining, and she laid it down at Alex's feet, very gently, as if she were putting down a mouse that she did not wish to hurt. And she looked up at Mrs Ibbs, and she gave a short, calm sneeze.

"Thank you, Willow," said Alex.

"Thank you," said Felix, and then, because he remembered, he turned to the window and said, "Please may we throw again?"

Part Fourteen. Five Little Lights

Alex held the die in both hands, and he looked at it.

He did not throw it. He thought of his own throw, which was much too hard, and Felix's, which had no please in it. He looked at the silver square of the moon's light, and he noticed something that nobody else had seen. The moon's dice only ever stopped inside the light. When a die lay in the light, it counted. When it lay outside, it did not.

"Felix," he said. "We have to throw it gently. And we have to throw it in."

"Into the light," said Felix.

"Right into the middle."

"Then I'll ask," said Felix. "And you throw."

Felix said please. Alex cupped his hands, the way you would hold a small bird, and rolled the die very softly across the table into the middle of the moon's light.

It showed a six.

The moon's own die was already waiting. It showed a four. And all round the table, nobody breathed.

"We won," whispered Marion. "That is one."

A tiny feather of silver light lifted off the moon's die, drifted across the table, and settled on the open page of the Record. It did not fade. It lay there, shining.

Alex put a mark in the corner. "One," he said.

"Please," said Felix. Alex rolled. A five against a two. "Two."

"Please." A six against a three. "Three."

Felix said please every time, and he said it a little more quietly each time, as if the moon were a friend who had just woken up. Alex rolled and counted, and he put every mark down true. The next throw was a five against the moon's six, and he said, "That was a lose, I'm sorry, that's a lose." And the moon, which does not mind a lose if it is counted fairly, brightened again.

"Please," said Felix. A six against a one.

"Four," said Maya, writing it too.

The last throw rolled all the way across the table and stopped right at the edge of the light. We all held our breath. It rocked once, and twice, and it settled on a six.

"Five," said Alex and Felix, together.

All five feathers of light lifted off the page and spun, in a silver ring, over the open book. And the pen on the table, all by itself, picked itself up, and in the gap between Wednesday and Friday it wrote, in perfect curly black ink, THURSDAY.

This time it stayed.

Part Fifteen. A Little Thinner

The great silver light went quiet.

Nobody cheered, not at first. We sat in the dinner hall, in the dark, and looked at the page. It was very beautiful. There was a Wednesday, and a Thursday, and a Friday, and a long, clear line of ink.

Then Ollie said, in a very small voice, "Is the moon all right?"

We looked up at the window. The moon was still round and still white, but if you looked very closely, and Maya did, it had a tiny thin shadow at one edge, like a bite taken out of a biscuit.

"It gave a little," said Maya. "That's all. Just a little."

"It does not mind," said Mrs Ibbs. She had a handkerchief to her eyes, and she did not seem to be ashamed of it. "It gave me a little a very long time ago, and nobody ever noticed. And it has given you a little tonight. It will be full again. It always is."

Mr Harris sat down on the little chair by the wall. "I'd like to say something," he said. "I drew four columns. And I have said everything is under control every day for a year, and I think I should stop."

"I would not stop," said Mrs Ibbs. "I would only add a word at the end. Perhaps: with help."

Mr Harris laughed. It was a surprised laugh, like a hiccup.

Mrs Ibbs turned and looked at Alex and Felix. She was standing on one leg again, and she was calm.

"I have kept every record there is," she said. "And I will tell you what I have learned. Nobody has to give everything. A little is enough, if you ask kindly, and if everyone gives their little. The moon gave a little. You gave a little. That was a whole day."

"A little from everybody," said Felix.

"Is a whole Thursday," said Alex.

Willow was sitting on the window ledge, with a cobweb still on her ear. She shut her eyes, slowly. She had very much enjoyed that.

Part Sixteen. Thursday

Thursday came, and it was a perfectly ordinary day, and it was the best Thursday there has ever been.

Kenji came in with a cake in a tin. His gran had made it, and it had a lot of icing. Mrs Tibbs had said we could not have a slice each, because it was a very small cake and there were a great many of us. So Kenji did something we did not expect. He took the knife, and he said, "We'll cut it thin. A little each. Then there's enough."

He cut it into so many pieces that each was no bigger than a stamp. Every single child got one. Ollie held his up to the light and said it was the best bit of cake he had ever had, which was surprising, because it was about the size of a crumb.

At lunch, there was fish pie.

Mrs Ibbs stood on one leg at the hatch, and next to her, in her white hat, stood Mrs Dunn, also on one leg. Mrs Dunn was wobbling a good deal, and she was laughing the dropped-tray laugh, and she said, "How d'you DO it, dear?" And Mrs Ibbs said, "You have to think like a bird," and Mrs Dunn said she thought she would think like a dinner lady instead, and put her foot down.

Elfine told us, over her fish pie, that an ibis stands on one leg to keep warm. She had looked it up. We told her we had not asked, and she said she would tell us anyway.

After lunch, Mrs Ibbs asked us to sit with her under the kitchen window. She took out the big old book, and her reed pen, and she opened it at the day's page.

"A record," she said, "is only worth keeping if it is true. And I would like you to tell me what is true about today."

So we told her. Alex said that Kenji had had a birthday. Felix said that Mr Harris had said sorry, and meant it. Ollie said that he had eaten a piece of cake the size of a crumb, and that it was the best cake he had had. Maya said the moon was a little bit thinner, and that it was fine. And Kenji said, "I got a Thursday."

Mrs Ibbs wrote every word. It took a long time. When she had finished, she shut the book, and the silver clasp went click.

"There," she said. "It is written. And I shall write that I was not at all moved by it."

Part Seventeen. A Pot on the Step

On Friday morning, something was different about the steps of the dinner hall.

It was November, and the playground was cold and bare. But in every crack around the bottom of the dinner hall steps, and along the edge of the wall, and between the paving stones, there were tiny flowers pushing up. They were very small, and white and yellow, no bigger than a button, and every one of them was open, as if it were spring.

The air smelled of turned earth.

On the top step, there was a small brown seed pot. Somebody had put it there very carefully, in the middle of the step, with the edges lined up. A little label was tied to it with a bit of green string. And the label was written in green ink, in a round, neat, rather sad hand.

Do not water until spring.

Mrs Ibbs came out of the kitchen door and looked at it, with her head on one side, for a very long time. She did not touch it.

"That is not my handwriting," she said. "I only write in black. And I know every hand there is." She tilted her head to the other side. "A very good hand. Very round. A little sad at the ends. I would say she wrote it very quickly, and she was thinking about something else."

"She?" said Maya.

"I shall write," said Mrs Ibbs, "that I did not say."

And that's when we heard it. It was very faint, and very far away, and it seemed to come from somewhere on the other side of the school fence. It was a voice, shouting a word. It was only one word, and it went up at the end, but the wind took it, and nobody could quite hear it.

Willow's ears went up. The little flowers all leaned, very slightly, the same way.

Alex looked at the pot. Felix looked at the fence.

"Monday," they said, at exactly the same time.

The End.